I'd say Flare gave you about the best and most reasonable answer you can expect. Contracts are complicated and every airline is different. I am biased to both airlines though (I fly for CAL and my dad is a 22 year DAL pilot). Really it depends on what you are looking for and what is most important to you. Right now at CAL EWR guys are off of reserve in 1-2 months and a Captain upgrade is possible in 2-3 years (no idea if it will hold). From what I gather at DAL, their scheduling is better than ours. Reserve sucks anywhere in my opinion. As a long call reserve at CAL we have an agressive pickup window the day prior to your reserve days where you can pick up a trip before you get assigned one. From what Flare said it sounds like DAL has something similar. As he said your best bet is probably to ask specific questions and see what each group has to say about their respective airline.